Apparently, there’s nothing that tickles this city’s funny bone more than Mozart. In their first Seattle appearance, classical music comedy duo Igudesman & Joo reduced a packed Town Hall to guffaws and giggles. Full of slapstick, musical hijinks, and general silliness, the pair’s popular show “A Little Nightmare Music” easily won over the enthusiastic Monday-night crowd. No “Seattle freeze” here! Igudesman & Joo had the audience singing, clapping along, and even mooing like cows. Victor Borge would have been proud.
Violinist Aleksey Igudesman and pianist Richard Hyung-ki Joo met as youngsters while studying at the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin School in England. Groomed for careers as professional classical musicians, the pair discovered a mutual interest in creating comedic skits. “A Little Nightmare Music”, their first comedy show, debuted in 2004. In the following years, the pair garnered worldwide fame through their numerous YouTube video clips, which have been viewed over 28 million times. The duo has also collaborated with many classical music luminaries, creating comedy skits featuring Gidon Kremer, Emanuel Ax, Janine Jensen, and Mischa Maisky.
Like classical music itself, Igudesman & Joo’s comedic style combines physical, intellectual, and emotional elements into a single package. Much of “A Little Nightmare Music” is pure physical comedy at its best. It’s clear that these two musicians love clowning around, whether it involves dancing an Irish jig while playing the violin or pretending to fall asleep while playing Beethoven’s “Für Elise” on the piano.
But there’s a lot more to “A Little Nightmare Music” than just slapstick. As a fan of wordplay and wit, I enjoyed Igudesman & Joo’s clever puns and music-related jokes. In my favorite skit of the evening, Joo pretended that the piano had turned into an ATM-like device. After “swiping” a credit card, he was instructed to enter his PIN and guided through the menu of options: “For beginner level, please play ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ or press ‘C’. For professional level, please play the first five measures of the Grieg Piano Concerto”.
In addition to their careers as performers and comedians, Igudesman and Joo are both professional composers and arrangers. In their comedy skits, their musical arrangements blend jazz and classical, Piazzolla tango and Schubert’s “Ave Maria”, and just about everything else. “A Little Nightmare Music” features many humorous musical juxtapositions, cleverly sneaking the James Bond theme, “The Final Countdown”, and countless other familiar tunes into popular works by Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, and other classical greats.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of “A Little Nightmare Music” is the sheer musicianship on display. Despite all their silliness, it’s apparent that Igudesman & Joo are high-caliber classical musicians. The flashy musical material in “A Little Nightmare Music” isn’t easy stuff by any means, and the duo performs it with flair and impeccable timing. They’re also versatile. Several skits show off their jazz improvisation chops, while others give them the opportunity to serenade the audience with a couple of songs.
Following in Borge’s footsteps, Igudesman & Joo has created a winning formula of musical comedy that’s clever, entertaining, educational, and (mostly) appropriate for all ages. At Monday’s performance, I heard several children’s voices screaming with laughter, especially at the slapstick routines. Today, many classical music organizations are realizing that they must change popular perceptions of the art form in order to survive. Musicians like Igudesman & Joo, with their unique approach and refreshing sense of humor, are a critical part of this movement to re-package and re-brand classical music as a vibrant and relevant cultural element of the 21st century. Besides, sometimes we all need to be reminded not to take ourselves too seriously.